Queer and Trans Speech Science and Technology -Interspeech Special Session 2025

There is a special session planned focusing on LGBTQI* related speech topics in Queer and Trans Speech Science and Technology. 

If you would like to submit a paper to this special session, you can find more information here

Summary: Trans and queer people have often been excluded from the very spaces that perform research or provide services for them (Zimman 2021, Huff 2022). At Interspeech 2024, the special session on Speech and Gender saw much discussion around trans and queer speech, and we aim to expand on those conversations and perspectives with this special session. By incorporating a broad range of perspectives across formal and informal communities interested in trans and queer voice, we aim to provide a space to build community and provide a foundation for future trans- and queer-driven research on trans and queer speech science and technology.

Topics:

• Trans and Queer Linguistics

• Trans and Queer Speech processing

• Empirical investigations of algorithmic bias

• Ethics of Queer and Trans Research

• Datasets of Queer and Trans Voices

• Ensuring Privacy for Trans and Queer Speakers

• Applications related to Trans and Queer Voice Training and Modification

The special session will consist of talks by invited speakers from the formal and informal trans and queer voice communities (1 hour), followed by a poster session of accepted papers (1 hour). The invited talks will focus on the ethical and practical challenges of developing and deploying “transgender voice technologies”, including technologically-supported voice training and inclusive speech datasets.

Organizers: Robin Netzorg, Juliana Alison Francis, Nina Markl, Francisca Pessanha, Cliodhna Hughes

Speech Science, Speech Technology, and Gender - Interspeech Special Session 2024

Click here to view all papers from the special session

The first-ever special session on speech and gender at Interspeech brought together scholars from across all speech disciplines. In addition to its technical program, an interdisciplinary discussion panel provided practical advice for understanding and discussing gender in speech research and addressing it in practical applications.

Gender is an extremely important speaker characteristic in speech science and speech technology. It is shown to affect speech production and interaction in meaningful and complex ways. Also essential is the compilation and use of inclusive and representative speech datasets to train and test speech technologies. Gender therefore relates to many popular research areas of the Interspeech community, including dataset development, speech production and perception, algorithmic bias, privacy, and applications to healthcare.

Topics:

• Empirical investigations of algorithmic bias
• Developing and using inclusive datasets
• Gender, sexuality and other types of diversity in language and speech production and processing
• Ensuring privacy and diversity for high-stakes speech applications
• Applications for gender representation in media
• Applications related to inclusion and healthcare (e.g., voice and speech therapy) related to gender and sexuality

Organizers: Nina Markl, Cliodhna Hughes, Odette Scharenborg